In American visual culture, the 1930s and 1940s were a key transitional period shaped by the era of modernism and the global confrontation of World War II. Christof Decker demonstrates that the war and its iconography of destruction challenged visual artists to find new ways of representing its consequences. Dealing with trauma and war crimes led to the emergence of complex aesthetic forms and media crossovers. Decker shows that the 1940s were a pivotal period for the creation of horrific yet also innovative representations that boosted American visual modernism and set the stage for debates about the ethics of visual culture in the post-9/11 era.
Price: $45.00
Pages: 160
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Series: American Culture Studies
Publication Date:
09 August 2022
Trim Size: 8.86 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783837662023
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, ART / Criticism & Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies
Christof Decker is a professor of American studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin where he also completed his second book (habilitation) with a study on the cultural functions of the social melodrama. He has published widely on documentary and Hollywood cinema, avant-garde film, literary and cultural history, visual culture, and the history of mass media.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
1 Trauma Narratives, Mixed Media, and the Meditation on the Invisible 15
2 Imaging Axis Terror: War Propaganda and the 1943 The Nature of the Enemy Exhibition at Rockefeller Center 35
3 In Search of a Common Vision: Ben Shahn, Photography, and The Family of Man Exhibition in 1955 61
4 Transnational Romance: Love and Politics in the Cinema of the 1930s and 1940s 91
5 Poetry and Film, Film as Poetry: Notes on a History of Creative Interactions 109
6 Screening Holocaust: American Television and the Discourse on 'Victim Cultures' in West Germany 131
Index 155
